


- a capite ad calcem - from head to heel -

by otter



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:10:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otter/pseuds/otter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John makes uncomplimentary remarks about Rodney's physiology, and Rodney performs MacGyver-like feats of engineering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	- a capite ad calcem - from head to heel -

"Jesus, McKay," Sheppard says. His voice is low and gasping, more breath than speech, and he's got one hand on the back of Rodney's knee, the other gripping hard at Rodney's ass. Every part of him is tensed and straining, and his jaw is clenched shut; the words come out between gritted teeth when he says, "I've known Buicks that weighed less."

Rodney pushes off maybe a little harder than is strictly necessary from Sheppard's thigh, and scrambles up with a knee on Sheppard's shoulder which only narrowly misses the man's face. He stabilizes himself with his hands against the pit wall; the earth is moist and crumbling, so he also sends a tiny landslide of debris down onto Sheppard's head, but Rodney can't bring himself to be sorry. He says, "Wow, Major, those are wonderful interpersonal skills you have there. I just can't imagine why the Air Force would exile a people person like you to Antarctica."

"Just hurry up, McKay," Sheppard says, as if Rodney's not trying already, as if Rodney's somehow lollygagging in his quest to scale Mount Sheppard, as if he plans to take a coffee break on Sheppard's shoulders when he's cold and miserable and covered in mud and halfway up and halfway down with his back already twinging and his crotch in Sheppard's face.

"Oh, right," Rodney says, "because I was going to build a summer home here. Would you _stand still_?"

Sheppard shifts, as if to illustrate that he is just completely incapable of taking any order whatsoever, even the kind that are only strongly worded suggestions. Rodney's foot nearly slides off of Sheppard's shoulder with the movement -- everything is slick and not in the good way -- but he very magnanimously refrains from 'accidentally' kicking Sheppard in the throat. "Seriously," Sheppard says, wheezing around his completely imaginary hernia. "You need to stop sneaking seconds at dinner. You'd never pass a field fitness test."

Rodney snorts, which is supposed to be a non-verbal indication of the absurdity of Sheppard's thought processes, but mostly all it accomplishes is shaking loose a bunch of powdery mold, which immediately takes up residence in Rodney's lungs when he goes to inhale. "Please," he says. "Field fitness? Put a Wraith in front of me and I'll run away screaming as fast as the next guy."

Sheppard snorts, too; Rodney can feel it through the soles of his boots, the little jerk of Sheppard's shoulders, the momentary shift of collarbone and equilibrium. "Sure," Sheppard says, "but only because you'd trip the next guy so he'd get eaten instead."

"Major Sheppard," Teyla says, from up above them where she's standing on solid ground and very much not at the bottom of a very muddy pit with all kinds of mold and fungus that will probably take up permanent residence in embarrassing places. "Doctor McKay. Are you prepared?"

Rodney says, "What?" because he's so busy thinking of something devastatingly witty to say for his riposte at Sheppard, and he isn't really paying attention to what Teyla's saying. Then he says, "Oh, yes. Right. Ah, ready when you are, Major." He stretches his hand up toward Teyla, ready to spring into action, but mostly he feels sort of ridiculous, like he's on home shopping television displaying the latest in primitive tiger pit technology.

Sheppard says something that might be an acknowledgement or might be an uncomplimentary remark about Rodney's physiology, and then he hooks his hands around the soles of Rodney's boots and pushes. It's like standing on stilts, a kind of stilts that have really weak elbows and stupid-looking hair. But it's enough, barely; Teyla grasps Rodney's outstretched hand, and then Ford's fingers close over his wrist, and the support beneath him vanishes as the two of them pull Rodney up the wall and out of the pit.

"Ow," he says, when they've let go of him and he's kneeling in the moist soil, breathing in a stillness that smells like forest. He's almost forgotten what fresh air tastes like, he's been in that pit for so long. "Thank you so much. I've always wanted to know what a dislocated shoulder feels like."

Ford says, "Hey, you're welcome, Doc," and slaps Rodney on the back with entirely too much enthusiasm.

Rodney says, "Ow," again, just to make a point, and then drags himself to his feet. He makes a few perfunctory swipes at the soil clinging to his knees, but there's little point in it, considering the rest of him is still covered in mud and debris that he doesn't want to think too much about. He spits a dirt clod out of his mouth and definitely doesn't wonder whether he's up to date on his tetanus vaccination, because he has more important things to worry about.

He shuffles very carefully to the edge of the hole and peers in. Sheppard is in the middle of the pit now, trying to ruffle loose dirt from his damp hair, and there's a boot-print on one shoulder left by Rodney's passage. "Okay," Rodney says. "So now how do you get out?"

Sheppard looks up, and that big smudge right next to his eye _might_ be from Rodney's boot, but Rodney isn't going to apologize unless accused. And probably not even then. "That's why we didn't leave the genius 'til last, McKay," he says, in a way that also communicates that he's thinking 'genius' might not be the appropriate term. "You're supposed to figure it out."

"Oh," Rodney says again. He worries sometimes that he's not keeping very sharp conversational skills, spending so much of his time with his intellectual inferiors, but he decides to worry about it later. "Didn't they teach you this sort of thing at Major school?"

Sheppard just blinks, like he's just way beyond even dignifying that question, and then he scrubs one hand through his hair again, letting loose another little rain of dirt that falls into his face. "No, Rodney," he finally says. "I failed Tiger Pits 101. Why don't you just lower something down here?"

Rodney looks around, which is pointless really because Ford's holding his hands out like he's got nothing, and whoever dug the pit in the first place failed to leave behind a convenient ladder. He leans back over the pit and says, "Sure you can't just climb out? Jump maybe? I mean, since you're so fit for being in the field and everything, I just figured--"

Sheppard says, "Rodney," with a tone of voice that's supposed to sound dangerous, but usually just comes off kind of whiny.

Rodney sighs his put-upon why-must-I-always-save-the-day sigh, and says, "Anybody seen any abandoned elevators lying around? Scaffolding? I'll settle for a sturdy log."

Ford blinks like he's not sure if any of that was a serious question -- Rodney figures Ford's just incapable of responding to anything not phrased as an order -- but Teyla says, "There are several fallen trees this way, Doctor McKay." She points off away from the trail and into the forest, which looks sort of dark and foreboding and come to think of it, a little less welcoming than the big tiger pit.

Teyla leads the way, which is fine by Rodney because that just means she'll get eaten first. They don't encounter any dangerous wildlife -- well, as far as they know; they could've been exposed to any number of poisonous insect bites, exotic fungi and airborne pathogens -- but the available selection of fallen trees leaves a lot to be desired.

"Too thin," Rodney says. "Too heavy, too termite-infested -- my God, those are the biggest, ugliest termites I've ever seen; do you suppose they even qualify as termites when they've got two heads like that? -- too short, way too short, too buried... ah." He leans over and raps the log with his knuckles, very cautiously, half-expecting a swarm of disturbed termite-things to rush out and maybe strip the flesh from his bones. But the wood is solid, and reassuringly unoccupied. He says, "Here's our ladder," and props a foot up on it, as if to illustrate just one of the many manly climbing poses available with this model.

"Alright," Ford says, "now how do we get it over there?"

Rodney eyes up the distance between here and there, which is cluttered with inconvenient scrub and a bunch of annoying forest. He says, "Well, you can just... lift it, right? I mean, it can't be that heavy."

Ford gives him a look like he doesn't understand why anybody thinks Rodney is so smart -- he's been learning that one from watching Sheppard, Rodney thinks -- and he says, "We can give it a try. You get that end, McKay."

Rodney doesn't quite laugh, but he doesn't smother it successfully either; it comes out as a strangled sort of snort. "Come on," he says. "Isn't that what you and Teyla are--" He stops himself just in time, like an uncertain suicide just barely drawing blood, instead of slipping the knife right through the carotid. "Um," Rodney says, and then he leans down and wraps his arms around the end of the log. "With your knees," he tells Ford, "otherwise you'll strain your back and then we'll have to carry you back to the--"

Ford cuts him off by effortlessly lifting his end of the log, which nearly results in Rodney's precious typing fingers being smashed, and to make matters worse, Rodney wasn't quite ready, so he ends up lifting with his back and shouting, "Oh god, spasm! Muscle spasm!" even as Ford hefts his end of the log up on his shoulder and starts moving back toward the pit.

"I will assist you, Doctor McKay," Teyla says, very kindly, and helps Rodney heave his end of the log onto his shoulder even as they're walking along, dragged helplessly by Ford and his over-achiever attitude. Teyla's not really tall enough to help much with the log's weight -- which is considerable, or at least considerable enough to leave permanent bark-shaped indentations in the flesh of Rodney's shoulder -- but she steadies it and walks along with her other hand on Rodney's arm, steadying him, too.

They manage to make it back to the pit -- which seems to have somehow relocated itself to approximately ten million miles away -- and put the log on the ground, with Teyla helping Rodney remove it from his shoulder.

"Ow," Rodney says, and then he says, " _Ow_ ," again when nobody reacts with sufficient sympathy. "I might have a dislocated shoulder after all this repeated trauma," he adds. Then he leans over the pit and says, in the general direction of Sheppard's dirty face and not-quite-spiky hair, "I want you to know that I blame you. I am in peak physical condition, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my level of fitness; the problem is that _you_ are always getting us into completely unacceptable situations. This sort of thing never happens to Markham's team."

"I know," Sheppard admits, with a sad little tone in his voice. "Did you read their mission report from last week, about that welcoming ritual with all the virgins? Man." He shakes his head and looks down at the bottom of the tiger pit, which does not offer up even a single virginal anything.

Rodney waves his hand at Ford in what he assumes is a clear enough signal -- military guys understand hand signals, they use them all the time -- but Ford seems to think it means "stand there and look stupid," because he doesn't do anything.

"Push that end into the hole," Rodney says, like he's speaking to a slow-witted child, which he pretty much is.

"Oh, right," Ford says, and pushes with his booted heel. The end of the log lands in the bottom of the pit, sending up a spray of mud and other assorted debris that clings to Sheppard's already-filthy clothes like he's making a fashion statement.

"God," Sheppard says. "I call a do-over on today. And let's skip the muddy pit thing, next planet." He steps onto the end of the log tentatively, steadies himself with a hand against the pit wall and starts inching his way up the makeshift ramp, staring down at his boots on the log and obviously willing the universe to let this one thing go right. He's clearly picturing the kind of pratfall that ends with him straddling the log and his precious family jewels crushed by the fall, so now Rodney's picturing it too; he winces in sympathy just at the thought of it, and covers it up by rotating his shoulder.

But Sheppard makes it out of the pit relatively unscathed, reproductive capabilities intact, and when he's standing there all covered in mud and grinning with his hair gone limp with moisture and the imprint of Rodney's boot still on his shoulder like evidence from a crime scene, Rodney says, "Well, that was horrible. Can we go home now?"

"No," Sheppard says, and his grin turns into a scowl. "We can't exactly go back and tell Elizabeth that we scrubbed the mission because we got dirty."

"Hey, I'm injured, here!" Rodney says, pointing at his own shoulder and cradling his arm to his body as if it might be broken. "And who knows what kind of hideous alien fungi we might've been exposed to. We'll just continue on with our completely pointless mission, but don't come crying to me when you develop alien jock-itch and your parts start falling off."

Sheppard says, "Um," and looks kind of torn. He's staring down at himself and all the mud and the mold and the questionable scents and the plant life clinging to his boots and Rodney's already contemplating what singularly deserving individual he's going to assign to performing cleaning and maintenance on their puddlejumper when they get home.

"If it helps," Rodney offers, "you can tell Elizabeth that we had to come back because Doctor McKay, who gets absolutely none of the respect that he should from his teammates, was too tired and traumatized to go on."

"Really?" Sheppard says. He's swiping at his pants with one hand, which is only serving to make the coating of mud more clay-like and turn Sheppard's hand an even slimier gray-green. He still doesn't look quite convinced.

"Okay," Rodney says. "How about this? Either we can tell Elizabeth that we scrubbed the mission because we're wet and miserable and this planet _sucks_ , or _I_ can tell Elizabeth that we had to scrub the mission because _you_ led us into what could very well be an alien latrine, and I was concerned about the health ramifications involved in being stewed in Pegasus Galaxy manure."

"Oh," Sheppard says. "Well, when you put it that way... we don't have to mention the latrine theory to anybody, right? Because the jokes would seriously never end."

"I think it's best," Rodney says, "if we don't speak of anything that was mentioned on this planet, ever again. And that includes my completely healthy weight, because I really don't take that kind of criticism well from anorexic little stick-men with stupid hair."

"Hey," Sheppard says, but without any real feeling. He sniffs at his muddy hand and wrinkles his nose. "You know, you really do need to work out more. We should get you on a regimen or something."

"Please," Rodney says. "We can't all aspire to Teyla's level of Amazonian splendor, and I've got better things to do than spend every waking moment in the gym like Ford does, which frankly seems a little obsessive. I know you military types are body-conscious, always trying to impress one another in the locker room with your big muscles and tight asses -- not that you even _have_ an ass to speak of, Major -- but I've got other priorities."

"Uh," Ford says, and his face flushes and little and he looks not-at-Rodney and he sounds a little strangled too, come to think of it.

"You're right," Sheppard says, and he's a little pink around the ears too. "Back to the jumper, everybody. And let us never, ever speak of these things again."

"What things?" Ford says, a little too quickly, and starts leading the way back toward the jumper. Teyla just smiles serenely, like she does, and follows Ford; the two of them put a non-standard amount of distance between themselves and Rodney and Sheppard, which is possibly a subtle hint that they smell absolutely rank.

"So," John says, when they've been walking for a few moments and he's apparently gotten bored with listening to the squishing in his boots. "It wasn't really a latrine. Right?"

"You're extremely challenged. Mentally, I mean," Rodney says. He's not distracted by the squishing sound so much as he is the squishing sensation between his toes, and he's already worried about alien jungle rot and athlete's foot. "When we said that we wouldn't speak of this--"

"Yeah, yeah," Sheppard says. "Would you rather I comment on the fact that you've apparently been checking out my ass?"

"Yes," Rodney says, just to be contrary, and lifts his chin like he's just daring Sheppard to go there, because Rodney has no shame and is absolutely happy to go there, to go all over there in excruciating detail.

"Well," Sheppard says, and subsides, chickening out, backing down. "Right. Okay, then. I won't mention any of this again. In fact, the moment we get back to Atlantis, this entire incident will be wiped from my memory."

"Good," Rodney says, approvingly. "Just hope that it can be wiped from your hair, too."

\- the end -


End file.
